sharing my life experiences, reflections and insights as a mother, a writer, an Occupational Therapist and and a spiritual being having a human experience

Posts tagged ‘change’

Recently, I decided to let go of my story of loss. I wrote out all of my losses over the past several years, all the big ones and decided I would let go of “my story” of loss. What does that mean? I don’t know but what comes to mind is Debbie Ford. And so I googled to jog my memory and found this wonderful interview with Debbie Ford.

Today, I would like to talk about the part of the interview that first caught my attention; getting unstuck in “trying”.

I was immediately drawn to read more of this part of the interview because I, too often, find myself saying that I am “trying” to do something. I have had ideas and even visions of what I would like to do with my writing and yet, find myself frequently getting stuck. Even though I was reading this interview to learn more about letting go of “my story”, I knew that what I was reading was extremely relevant.

At the above link, if you scroll to page 5, 3rd paragraph, the interviewer, McGee, speaks of something Ford once said, “Don’t say you’re ‘trying’. You’re either doing something or you’re not doing it.” and asks her “How do we get unstuck in “trying”?”

Debbie Ford answers: quoted from the text

I use the analogy in The Right Question of a car trip. If you just say, “I want to have a better business,” that’s like saying, “I want to go to the South.” Where in the South?

How much better do you want your business? You need to get really specific, and yes, you may have to modify your course. You need to start with a very, very strong vision, because then you can wake up every morning and say, “What do I need to do to get there?”

If you were going on a road trip, you wouldn’t look at your map once a week or once a month. You’d look at it every day. Say, “This is where I want to go.” Then, ask yourself, “What can I do today to get there?”

That is where we’ve got to go with people. Whether it’s a New Age retailer or an individual, we’ve got to inspire them to have clear and concise vision. And know you can change your vision. Maybe I say I’m going to New York, but all of a sudden I wind up in New Jersey and I love it. That’s okay-you can change your vision.

We need to be clear about it. We have that picture, and we hold it in. We have the intent to get there, and we’re taking those steps. We’re taking really good, strong steps. I don’t think the universe can guide us. I think our souls know.

The above information is taken from an article in the New Age Retailer from Jan/ FEb 2007. The author and editor in chief is Kathy McGee.

After reading that, I had the idea of creating a plan for my vision in the form of a map. Instead of listing out goals and objectives in outline style, I need to create a map of my vision. A map that I can write on and amend as my vision unfolds. Unlike, a travel map with clear highways to travel on your route, this map needs to be ongoing. I can write out my vision with as many descriptions and specifics including financial aspects and then, I can either work backwards and add in possible things I need to do to get to the final destination. Or, I can just start from today and list what I can do now to get to my destination.

My brain is busy with possibilities of how I can create this map. I do need to let my right brain, my creative side, take the lead. My left brain has already made the list, written goals, objectives and daily tasks, only to find myself not able to follow through in that format. I think I need to keep this visual and start with a vision collage of what I would like my life to be like. From that vision collage, I can then create my map. I believe I need to plan to do just that and stop thinking about it, because then I am once again, “trying”.

So, I will make a vision collage. This You Tube Video gives a good explanation on Vision Boards. I also found this blog that describes the idea well, How to Make a Vision Board. After I make my vision board, I will let you know where I went from there and how I am making my map. Maybe you might be interested in doing the same or something similar. I would love to hear about your vision collage, or road map to where you want to go. Please share, for the benefit of all.

It was powerful to read the message I wrote at the beginning of this year and ever so relevant to my life now, 7 months later. The end of my entry I quote part of a song from David Wilcox, taking my favorite lines.

And so I will start this post with those lyrics and my closing remarks in m post.

“Your compass is within you

You’re holding out for something real

How long the distance

Getting by and getting through

Your heart’s strong insistence, says nothing else will do

But it’s hard to breath inside some cheap disguise”

-David Wilcox, Turning Point

I make no resolutions or promises in this new year to do or refrain from certain things. Instead, I take the oath to continue on my journey of life and self discovery, aiming to be a better version of the person I strive to be. I accept my shortcomings and mistakes as part of my journey. I strive to focus on my strengths and tune into what I do want to see in my life to draw more of the same to my life. I aim to spend more time writing and thus working on myself which is key to helping anyone else in my life. I must first put on my own oxygen mask before I put on my child’s.

Every moment in my life is a turning point. I make a decision in every moment, a decision of who I now choose to be. My only goal is to be “the grandest version of the greatest vision ever I held about who I am”.*

Changes in my life….a brief overview

August 24, 2011

I moved here almost 19 years ago, after graduating college, started my first full-time job in my chosen profession, got married over 17 years ago, had my first child nearly 14 years ago, moved to this home over 10 years ago, had an early miscarriage over 10 1/2 years ago, had my second child 9 1/2 years ago, was able to stay home full-time when my husband sold his business and got full-time work, 4 years ago, he lost his job 3 years ago, had my second child 2 1/2 years ago, returned to work outside the home 1 1/2 years ago, started writing my mini books for the movement of change almost 1 year ago.

My daughter has had OCD for at least a year and a half. We have had our dog for almost 10 months. It has been almost 8 months since I hurt my back. It has been over 3 months since my husband had his heart attack.

All these experiences in my life have been turning points. They have been changes in my life that have had positive and negative impact upon my life. And with most if not all of these experiences, there has been an opportunity in each challenge and the decisions I made, further impacted my life from that moment on.

I will now relate my own experiences as they relate to the lyrics from this song.

“your compass is within you”

The answers are within me. I must tune into myself to see them. In order to help my child who has been experiencing OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, an anxiety disorder, I must first look at myself and be in tune with my own feelings, beliefs and my authentic voice. Sure I need to research and reach out to others to help her but just as important, I need to turn inward and use my own intuition and consciousness to know the best decisions to make and the path to follow to help her recovery.

“You’re holding out for something real”

I pause as I read this one. What first comes to mind is my writing. And really living the life as I choose to live it, working from home and doing what I love and earning a living from it, spending my time doing what matters most to me. Yet, as I write even that, I know there is something deeper to this. I am holding out. I haven’t realized my dream of earning a living doing what I love, writing, parenting, finding a path to earn income from my writing.

Ah-ha!

I was holding out, with my writing, and then I found the Message of Change program and dove in head first and immersed myself in the process for over a month writing a mini book to share a message of truth with the world. In fact, it was after I enrolled in that program August of 2010, that I finally started my blog here and begin sharing my writing with the world- in an open manner where others could read what I was writing. Up until that time, I had written many things but had not yet really shared my thoughts , my best writing, with others.

As I write this, I feel myself coming back on path again. I have just brought such clarity to myself and my writing. It is time to move forward after being stalled for to long- well, that is a judgement on myself, let me rephrase that- after a delay, to the process of writing my mini book or books. And I don’t really know what that will look like or how but I know that coming here each week to blog is foremost the best step I can take.

“How long the distance”

I am nearly 42, and will begin my 43rd year of life. Everything in my life has brought me to write here and now.

“Getting by and getting through”

Yes, many times in my life I have functioned in this state of getting through the day, getting past where I was from high school to having to work full-time when I wanted to be home full-time with my newborn child and surviving life after my husband had a heart attack. Lately, especially over the past month or two, as my husband has recovered more from his heart attack and has been able to return to the level of activity he had before May 4, 2011, I have found myself feeling like I was just” getting through life”. And it was this feeling of just going through the motions that brought me back to myself. I knew deep within that I did not want to continue to live in this method. I wanted to live my life more fully and intentionally and with more meaning.

“Your heart’s strong insistence, says nothing else will do”

When my husband suffered a massive heart attack and cardiac arrest, and lived, I knew more deeply than I have ever felt, that I needed to write through the experience. I knew I needed to write, I “had to”. Writing is more than putting words on paper for me, it is the way my soul breaths.

And that thought leads right into the next line:

“But it’s hard to breath inside some cheap disguise”

It is hard to breath, to live fully, when I am not being who I really am, when I am not being my authentic self and expressing authentic self. Parenting from my heart, living from love (not fear) and expressing my inner truth through writing that I share openly.

Grief is a multi-faceted response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or something to which a bond was formed. Although conventionally focused on the emotional response to loss, it also has physical, cognitive, behavioral, social, and philosophical dimensions. While the terms are often used interchangeably, bereavement often refers to the state of loss, and grief to the reaction to loss.- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grief

Yes, I just quoted Wikipedia, this is my blog, not a research paper.

I choose that definition because of the last statement ” grief” “the reaction to loss”.

Merriam- Webster defines it as “deep sadness especially for the loss of someone or something loved”.

Sadness is a reaction to the loss. There are many other reactions to loss, other feelings and states of being. I think they are missing something. I personally think Wikipedia does a much better job of defining it than Merriam-Webster. It is muti- faceted.

And I am going to go one step further and define it as reaction to change in one’s life.

We can grieve the loss of a job, change in our financial situation, change in our life roles, and so many other large and small changes in our life.

Change

It’s time for a change…

Today, I decided to let go of my story of loss. I wrote out all of my losses over the past several years, all the big ones, and decided I would let go of “my story of loss”. What does that mean? I don’t know but what comes to mind is Debbie Ford. And so I googled to jog my memory and found this:

The following is taken from an article in the New Age Retailer from Jan/ FEb 2007. The author and editor in chief is Kathy McGee.

You will find the following starting on the bottom left of page 5:

The interviewer, McGee asks Debbie Ford how does she get rid of her self- criticism and self- doubt.

Debbie Ford replies:

I haven’t gotten rid of it. When I dip into my story (the negative internal dialogue that keeps us stuck), it’s there anytime I want to revisit it. It’s part of the collective unconscious, it’s part of our humanity. But today, I know that’s the inside of my story.

When I feel like I’m being self-critical or insecure, I know that I’m deeply in my humanity. Inside our humanity, inside our story, it’s all fear-based. We compare ourselves, think there’s something wrong with us- we’re not smart enough, pretty enough, don’t have the right whatever.

I try to pop myself out of my story and into my divine self. I ask myself, “What do I have to do right now? Do I need to get on my hands and knees and pray? Do I need to meditate?” it’s as simple as asking, “If I totally trusted and were in connection with the Divine right now, what would I hear?” Start to listen to that new frequency, and it raises you right out of your story.

I think what you just asked me is so vital to the process, because most people are trying to get rid of their self-doubt, their self-criticism, and their fears. you can’t get rid of it. It’s part of your humanity.

And then the interviewer, McGee, sums up the rest of it when she adds, “And by trying to get rid of it, we’re creating more fear and digging ourselves deeper into our story.”

And Debbie goes on about fear saying that it is a healthy emotion. She says to identify the feeling of fear and ask what it looks like, what it feels like in order to give fear its own personality, different from your own.

“Anything we are identified with has control over us. So, if you’re just scared and in fear, fear has total control. If you can make it separate from yourself, you will have control over it. If you give fear a different name, face, smell, color, or size from yours, it becomes something other than you. You can say, “OK fear, I see you. What do you need from me to lie down and be peaceful?””

Today, I wrote the post, What Does it all mean?, and now I can understand that I was “in my humanity”. I was also in my story and therefore in fear. What is wonderful is that I have a better understanding of what it means to “let go of my story”. I have only read Debbie Ford’s First book, The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, but here I am understanding better what I sought to do when I first posted the title for this blog. The beauty is that I had no idea where I would go with this when I wrote the title. I only knew that I was in fact, ready to let go of my story of loss. I used prior knowledge and found my answer.

I don’t have to get rid of my story but I can move away from it. I can also see when I am “in my story” and use my tools to step outside of it if I choose. No matter what, I don’t have to beat myself up about any of it. I can be ok with being in my story and with choosing to move out of it. Because I choose, when I am consciously choosing, to move out of fear, I know that I can have more moments of moving out of my story and stepping back from it. Even Debbie Ford, author of 7 books, speaker and founder of a Life Coaching Business, admits to still having dark days. It is a process.